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"If you think &lt;strong&gt;Michael Jackson&lt;/strong&gt;'s \"&lt;strong&gt;This Is It&lt;/strong&gt;\" sounds familiar, it's because the song is a rip-off that was released nearly two decades ago by another artist ... and the man making this claim is none other than music legend &lt;strong&gt;Paul Anka&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http://tmz.vo.llnwd.net/o28/player/audio/101209_mj_this_it_it.mp3\"&gt;&lt;img src=\"http://ll-media.tmz.com/2009/10/12/1012_mj_audio_3-1.jpg\" border=\"0\" hspace=\"4\" vspace=\"4\" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;a href=\"http://tmz.vo.llnwd.net/o28/player/audio/101209_saffire_this_is_it.mp3\" target=\"_blank\"&gt;&lt;img src=\"http://ll-media.tmz.com/2009/10/12/1012_safire_audio_4-1.jpg\" border=\"0\" hspace=\"4\" vspace=\"4\" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Anka tells TMZ in 1983, he wrote a song with Jackson called \"&lt;strong&gt;I Never Heard&lt;/strong&gt;\" -- and the demo of the song was recorded in Anka's studio in Carmel, CA. Anka says he took the tape to a studio in Hollywood to put the finishing touches on it for Anka's duets album, \"Walk a Fine Line.\" Anka claims Jackson -- who was just blowing up at the time with \"Thriller\" -- got a big head and \"stole the tapes\" from the studio.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Anka tells us he called the lawyers who repped both he and Jackson -- ironically one of them was John Branca -- and threatened them with a lawsuit if he didn't get the tapes back. Anka got them back but insists Jackson made a copy of the tapes and used the track with his voice from \"I Never Heard\" -- and simply retitled it, \"This Is It.\"&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Anka gave \"I Never Heard\" to another artist -- Safire -- who recorded it in 1990.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;iframe src=\"http://webcenter.polls.aol.com/modular.jsp?template=1175&amp;amp;view=178158&amp;amp;pollId=178450&amp;amp;channel=tmz.com3\" border=\"0\" style=\"margin: 0px; float: right;\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"120\" width=\"175\"&gt;&lt;/iframe&gt;We called Sony Music who released \"This Is It\" ... no comment so far.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Anka tells us he's talking with his lawyers about his legal options.&lt;br /&gt;\n&lt;div class=\"related\"&gt;\n&lt;h3&gt;&lt;span&gt;See Also&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/h3&gt;\n&lt;ul&gt;\n&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=\"http://www.tmz.com/2009/10/12/michael-jackson-this-is-it-song/\" target=\"_blank\"&gt;New Michael Jackson Song Hits the Internet&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;\n&lt;/ul&gt;\n&lt;/div&gt;"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.tmz.com/2009/10/12/paul-anka-michael-jackson-this-is-it-i-never-heard/3/>